People’s Champion finalist 2018: Baby2Body

Start-up name: Baby2Body
Founder: Melinda Nicci
Started in: 2015
Based in: London
Business description: A health, fitness and wellbeing coaching platform for pregnant women and mothers

Shortlisted category

Women in Business Award

The Baby2Body story:

For years, pregnancy exercise has been missing from the fitness and exercise lifecycle and it’s a problem that entrepreneur Melinda Nicci is intent on fixing.

The founder of Baby2Body, a hyper-personalized and data-driven health and wellbeing coaching app for pregnant women and mothers, Nicci wants to address one of the biggest pain points for women all over the world…Knowing exactly what to do to have a healthy baby and a happy, healthy pregnancy.

Backed by £1.5m in external funding, Baby2Body uses artificial intelligence (AI) to tailor proprietary content (such as exercise tips, wellbeing advice etc) to the exact day of a woman’s pregnancy or early stage of motherhood so that coaching can be personalised to the individual.

As a mother with a passion for health and fitness – Nicci is also the author of the bestselling book Pregnancy and Exercise – Nicci launched Baby2Body in 2015 after realising that her “entrepreneurial itch wouldn’t go away” and so “decided to leave the relative luxury of a corporate salary” to start the business.

Three years on and Nicci’s decision to dive into the start-up world has paid off; Baby2Body now has 800,000 subscribers and has received over 200,000 downloads on its iOS app.

In fact, Baby2Body claims to have become the premier app for maternal health – ranked first in the App Store – with growth bolstered by its partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Why Baby2Body made our shortlist:

With a mission to empower and inform women all over the world on how to lead healthier lives, Melinda Nicci has found start-up success in building an app which puts pregnancy exercise at the fore.

For too long, apps and platforms have failed to cater to pregnancy– a point recently highlighted by tech and science writer Swapna Krishna -and so Baby2Body’s combination of wellbeing, nutrition, beauty and fitness tips for new mums and mums-to-be has brought of breath of fresh air to the industry.

With almost one million users, Nicci – recently named as one the most influential women in IT – is a worthy finalist for the Women in Business Award 2018.

Where to find out more about Baby2Body:

Website: www.baby2body.com/
Twitter: @baby2body